Type of Stainless Steel used in Dropouts

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Amir Avitzur

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Dec 11, 2019, 7:11:55 AM12/11/19
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Anybody know the type or grade of stainless steel that is used to make stainless steel dropouts?

Any difference between cast and machined dropouts?

Amir
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Amir Avitzur
R"G Israel

Hahn Rossman

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Dec 11, 2019, 4:11:50 PM12/11/19
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I recently made some drop outs for my Concours de Machines bike out of 17-4 and they are impossibly strong. In fact really too strong. it's impossible to align the front tabbed drops with normal H tools without ripping the tabs from the blades! 
I would recommend using something a lot less intense although it did machine beautifully!
Hahn Rossman

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Mark Bulgier

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Dec 11, 2019, 4:42:15 PM12/11/19
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Hahn Rossman wrote:

> I recently made some drop outs for my Concours de Machines bike out of 17-4 and they are impossibly strong. 

Aren’t Paragon drops 17-4?  At least some models say so, others don’t mention what alloy.  (It probably says on some webpage I just haven’t found yet.)

 

Paragon doesn’t recommend bending the tabs, they kindly suggest angling the slots in the stays.   Maybe it's more like "Just you try to bend them, you'll see!"  They’re pretty adamant about it – they say “Dropouts that have been bent in the course of construction are not guaranteed in any way”.  I didn’t know dropouts came with a guarantee...

 

GP Wilson dropouts (1970s) were 17-4 but at least his were very thin.  Like the thinnest dropouts you’ve ever seen, but thinner.  Well, not counting AD Stump front dropouts (1970s), which were about 1 mm thick IIRC – those are insane.  Stumps were made from 4130 cold-rolled sheet. They included aluminum faces inside and out, that were riveted on.  They built up the overall width to match Campy, so you could get a neutral wheel in a race and the QR would be adjusted right.  But I digress.

 

Mark Bulgier 

Jon Kendziera

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Dec 11, 2019, 6:39:23 PM12/11/19
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Hahn Rossman wrote:

> I recently made some drop outs for my Concours de Machines bike out of 17-4 and they are impossibly strong. 

Mark Bulgier wrote:

Aren’t Paragon drops 17-4?  At least some models say so, others don’t mention what alloy.  (It probably says on some webpage I just haven’t found yet.)



The Paragon stainless dropouts are 17-4 and very thick, I can't imagine having much success bending them using normal methods.  Hahn, how thick are yours?  I've had luck bending 17-4 that's about 4mm thick or less.  You do have to use care with thinner dropouts, they can get a little flexible if you don't follow the 'less dropout more tube' mantra.


Jon Kendziera

https://www.jonny-cycles.com/  


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Doug Fattic

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Dec 12, 2019, 8:49:51 AM12/12/19
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Amir, what about using regular steel for the dropouts and then adding stainless plates?  That way you can braze the dropouts with bronze and add the plates so wheel axle nuts don't mess with the paint.  As I'm sure you know stainless dropouts have to be brazed with silver.

One of my former framebuilding class students has drawn up some vertical road dropouts similar to the ones Mitch Pryor made but not longer does.  Probably we will have these laser cut in Ukraine.  Both Mitch's and his have the body made with regular steel and plates covering the axles and eyelets made out of stainless that can be silvered to the body.

Doug Fattic
Niles, Michgian

Alex Wetmore

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Dec 12, 2019, 10:20:49 AM12/12/19
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Keith Anderson made very nice "TITO" inserts about a decade ago that were great for this style of dropout.

They cover all of the axle faces with stainless and are silver brazed to whatever dropout the builder drew themselves.  I have some pictures here:
https://photos.alexwetmore.org/Bicycles/Framebuilding/Ivy-T/i-KKfqLtb/A

I made the steel dropouts using a tiny CNC mill (Taig).

I made some pretty ugly dropouts while trying to figure out lines that worked well to my eyes:
https://photos.alexwetmore.org/Bicycles/Framebuilding/Ivy-T/i-3VG7xvh/A

I was pretty happy with the final results though the file marks in this photo always make me cringe (personal bike, I was a hobbyist builder):
https://photos.alexwetmore.org/Bicycles/Framebuilding/Ivy-T/i-rDjpPDD/A
or another fork:

I still have a number of these if anyone is looking to make something extra special, I doubt that I'll be building any bikes in the next few years that will need them.

I don't recommend them for disk brakes, especially if you combine them with an e-bike hub.  I had an accident recently that could have been really ugly to me but only turned out to be ugly to the fork, when my left wheel nut loosened and the front wheel ejected under braking.  I also think they'd be a bad choice for horizontal dropouts because the very hard face is not something that a quick release can get a good bite into.

alex
From: frameb...@googlegroups.com <frameb...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Doug Fattic <fatticb...@qtm.net>
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2019 5:49 AM
To: Framebuilders <frameb...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [Frame] Re: Type of Stainless Steel used in Dropouts
 
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Jon Kendziera

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Dec 12, 2019, 12:26:22 PM12/12/19
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On Thu, Dec 12, 2019 at 9:20 AM Alex Wetmore <al...@phred.org> wrote:
Keith Anderson made very nice "TITO" inserts about a decade ago that were great for this style of dropout.

They cover all of the axle faces with stainless and are silver brazed to whatever dropout the builder drew themselves.  I have some pictures here:
https://photos.alexwetmore.org/Bicycles/Framebuilding/Ivy-T/i-KKfqLtb/A

Those TITO inserts Keith made were really neat.  Relatively easy to braze  (easier to locate than stainless faces), eliminate the need for any paint around the axle area, and let you braze in normal steel dropouts with brass which is one of the most enjoyable joints to braze on a frame.   Has anyone had any contact with Keith Anderson lately?  I wouldn't mind picking his brain on these and seeing if he'd be ok with someone else bringing them back.

Jon Kendziera
 

Nestor Czernysz

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Dec 31, 2019, 8:39:15 PM12/31/19
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I’d be interested in some Tito type dropouts. I love the idea.
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